Climate Change Road Trip Launched to Investigate Energy Extraction

As the price of energy rises, so do the stakes. To document the country’s dependency on fossil fuels and extraction methods that contribute to global warming, a three-month cross-country road trip has been launched by AlterNet.

Jun 05, 2013

A war over fossil fuels and climate change is being waged in backyards across the country as the era of cheap and easy energy draws to an end. AlterNet, an independent online publication, has announced Hitting Home, a three-month cross-country journey chronicling America’s growing dependency on fossil fuels and the extreme extraction methods that contribute to runaway climate change.

Even as scientists recommend drastically reducing dependency on fossil fuels, governments, and corporations alike are using more extreme methods to extract those fuels – hydraulic fracturing, tar sands mining, mountaintop removal mining, and deep sea drilling – resulting in rampant and irreversible pollution to the surrounding areas and its residents.

Hitting Home, led by senior editor Tara Lohan, will document the communities devastated by extreme energy extraction, its effects on the environment, and the public movements working for a cleaner, more sustainable future. Lohan will travel with her partner and their dog in a lightweight Cricket camping trailer outfitted with solar power. They will visit numerous communities in the U.S. and Canada, with the first stop in Moab, Utah, where concerned residents are blocking plans for a new tar sands mine.

“I've talked to people all across the country who have seen their neighborhoods turned into industrial zones because of extreme extraction, and they are scared,” said Lohan, editor of two books on the global water crisis, Water Matters and Water Consciousness. “It not only locks us into a future of catastrophic climate change, but is already endangering our health, our communities, our food, precious resources like water, and the safety of workers in virtually every state in the country.”

Both Hitting Home and AlterNet will publish Lohan’s updates from the road, including a travel blog, video profiles, photo essays, and in depth-feature stories. The end of the trip will culminate in a multimedia e-book that shows the consequences of dirty energy, the power structures that keep fossil fuels afloat, and the rising movement to implement immediate alternatives.